The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXXXVI, Part 1-2 ... - Khamkoo

Lue ethnicity in national context
population of Lamphun Province which
probably numbers between 240,000-320,000 7 •
There is also a sizeable Lue population in Burma
to the west of the Mekong (e.g. in Muang Yong
and Chiang Tung), though I have been unable
to discover any figures for this region. While
estimates for the Lue population outside the
homeland of Sip Song Panna are rather imprecise
it is reasonable to conclude that there are many
more Lue outside Sip Song Panna than inside.
Some of this is due simply to the redrawing of
borders in the nineteenth century (e.g. loss of
Muang U and Muang U Tai to French colonial
Laos) but the Lue diaspora can be largely
attributed to migration. The reasons for this
exodus are many and varied. In Laos migration
reached as far south as Luang Prabang with the
establishment of the Lue village of Ban Phanom.
Here the original settlers accompanied wives
offered as tribute (tawaai) by Sip Song Panna
princes to the Lao king Fa Ngum in the
fourteenth century 8 • However, most Lue
migration from Sip Song Panna into L~os has
occurred during the last two centuries, some to
escape marauding Haw armies, some enticed
by the prospect of unoccupied fertile land, and
others to escape the turmoil of civil wars.
Lue migration into northern Thailand began
on a large scale in the early nineteenth century
as a result of military and forced resettlement
campaigns carried out by Prince Kawila. Two
centuries of Burmese rule had left the Chiang
Mai valley devastated and virtually depopulated.
Kawila, backed by his suzerain, the Siamese
king (Rama 1), initiated a policy known as
'putting vegetables into baskets, putting people
into towns' (kep phak sai sa kep khon sai muang)
in order to rebuild Chiang Mai and re-establish
it as the political and cultural centre of Lan Na.
To achieve this he launched numerous military
raids to the west and north against Red Karen,
Shan, Khoen, and Lue villages and towns to
resettle war captives in Chiang Mai, Lamphun,
and Lampang. According to Volker Grabowsky
(1999: 21, 22), the largest influx of manpower
to Lan Na was a result of the conquest of the
small Lue kingdom of Muang Yong, which
surrendered in 1805, and 10,000 people from
here were resettled in Lamphun. In 1807/8
further attacks were made against various muang
in Sip Song Panna and many Lue families from
here were resettled in Lampang9 and Chiang
Mai.
Nan similarly suffered under the yoke of
Burmese domination and towards the end of the
eighteenth century it was devastated and
depopulated. The repopulation of Nan appears
to have begun in the early 1790s. In 1790, 585
families from Muang Yong avoided deportation
to Burma by fleeing to Nan (ibid.: 24). In 1812,
6,000 war captives from Muang La, Muang
Phong (in Sip Song Panna) and from Luang
Phu Kha (northern Laos) were resettled in Nan
(ibid.: 25) 10 • However, Grabowsky suggests that
Nan's resettlement policy was based less on
military force and more on voluntary
resettlement and notes that after the late 1830s
numerous Lue fled anarchy and civil war in Sip
Song Panna and sought refuge in Nan.
Such voluntary migration accounts for the
Lue settlement of the Thawangpha b~in in Nan.
For example, in 1836 or 1837 a civil war
developed between two aristocratic factions over
precious elephants from Laos. One group from
Muang La (in southern Sip Song Panna) fled
the turmoil, sought sanctuary in Nan and
established three villages in the Thawangpha
basin (Nong Bua, Ton Hang and Don Mun)
(ibid.: 26; see also Pachoen 1984: 9-12). As a
result of these migrations there are now some
50 Lue villages in Nan province (Ratanaporn
1996: 6).
Whether or not Lue migration has been
forced or voluntary, historical 'memories' of
migration are for many Lue in diaspora an
important component of localized ethnic
consciousness 11 • These 'memories' also
comprise recollections of the locality from which
the Lue migrated and of the guardian spirits of
that locality. Furthermore, these memories are
preserved through various forms of representation:
naming the new settlement after
the original, resettlement in an area that is
geographically and ecologically similar to the
homeland, and recreation of the local guardian
spirits 12 •
The transformation of the cult of guardian
spirits and Lue ethnicity in Nan
Diasporic representation is less complete in the
case of the three Lue villages of the Thawangpha
Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 86, Parts 1 & 2
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